Exclusive Gandhi Photos from Life Magazine 1/6

Gandhi Photo Gallery

To celebrate Gandhi's liberation on May 5, 1944, we're presenting these photos from the LIFE magazine archives, taken by LIFE photographer Margaret Bourke-White.

Bourke-White was a friend to -- as well as a close chronicler of the extraordinary life of -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi; in fact, she was the last person to interview him hours before his assassination in January 1948. It’s hardly surprising, really, that Bourke-White would be drawn to a figure like Gandhi.

Here, some of Bourke-Whites most revealing, most intimate glimpses of the spiritual leader and revolutionary thinker known to generations of Hindus as the “Great Soul.”